social media

Donate Your Time And Things Or Buy a Celeb's For Good Causes

A corset from Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad tour is just one of the items available on Allthis, a new social media website that offers a new way to support a cause. Billed as the marketplace for things money can't buy, the site lets you create a listing to donate an item or a service that other people can bid on. Of course you can also bid on any existing auction item or create a new one (Rihanna's corset was listed at just $150 last time I checked). Other celeb items up for bid include a chance to have Ben Stiller record your outgoing voice mail message.

In addition, non-profits, clubs, companies, or any type of affinity group can create teams to raise money together for a common cause. The difference between this and other types of charity fund raising drives is that it allows people to each do or contribute what they are good at rather than creating a single task that everyone has to contribute to. Listers are charged a modest flat fee per item.

"We created allthis with a vision to leverage an individual's expertise and network as an alternative method of donation, while giving non-profits a creative way to excite and unite their supporters," said
Paul Weinstein, CEO and co-founder of allthis.com. "Ranging from access to the influential, engagement with the creative, to the downright silly, what people have to offer is infinitely diverse."

Tags: allthis, charity auctions, rihanna, social media

Cigar Social Networking: The Online Smoking Section

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Cigars

Remember when you'd walk into a restaurant and be asked, "Smoking or non?" If you answered the former, you'd be escorted to a dedicated portion of the floor where you could light up before, during or after your meal. This ritual is disappearing in the physical world, but it's springing up online, where a "virtual smoking section" is taking form, connecting cigar smokers from around the world.

Obviously, there are plenty of resources on the web for the cigar community. The major industry publications, such as Smoke and Cigar Aficionado publish to the web, even with some exclusive content. Retailers – both brick-and-mortar and online pure-play – are numerous, and there are too many cigar blogs to count. The growth of social media has taken the online cigar community to a new level, though. The same utilities that enable 140-character conversations and elaborate digital friendship interconnections have emerged around the "fellowship of the leaf."

It may look as though the real world banishment imposed on smokers – first to smoking sections and then to cigar shops only ... or not at all – may be moving onto the internet. After all, everyone on Twitter can smell @DylanAustin's Camacho Select, right? Well, nobody wants to see or hear cigar chatter, even if it is self-selecting.

But, I wouldn't rush to celebrate or lament an online smokers' quarantine. Instead, we're contributing to venues that focus exclusively on our interests. We're opting in, not being forced out.

Two sites are particularly interesting: Social Cigar and CigarShout.

Tags: camacho, camacho select, camachoselect, cigar, cigars, social media, social networking, SocialMedia, socialnetworking

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